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Saturday, August 18, 2012

Why The United Nations is failing.

The very name of the organization signifies the problem.The United Nations is trying to promote
peaceful coexistence among countries, while what we should be trying to do is
unite people. The status quo they try so hard to maintain is not working. They
are spending large amounts of money and energy propping up artificial
boundaries of the inanimate organizations called countries or states. It does
not matter if the leaders of those countries are corrupt and abusing their own
people. They believe in the right of the State over the rights of individual
people.

Although the United Nations spends a large percentage of their budget on
peacekeeping, they have failed to stop several incidents of genocide and other
atrocities throughout the world. The few times the UN has acted, it tended to
act more out of interest in protecting assets and resources that were important
to the countries in power, than in saving the most lives possible. Throughout
the history of the United Nations, millions of people have been murdered as the
world sat by and watched. One only needs to look at the statistics of what
happened in Cambodia in the
1970’s, Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina
in the 1990’s, and Darfur
in the first decade of this century. If a vote was taken by the people of the
world, I am certain they would have overwhelmingly supported doing whatever it
took to stop those atrocities. But the United Nations was completely
ineffective when it came to saving millions of human lives.

The United Nations is not even a true democratic organization. It represents the interests of the
governments of the nations who form it, and not necessarily the individuals
within those nations. Even with that understanding, it is not a true democracy
among the member states. The
five permanent members of the Security Council can veto any important
matter.That means less that one percent
of the membership can stop them from doing what is right.

The way the five permanent members gained their status was not even democratic.
They simply happened to be the victors at the end of World War II. China’s seat is actually held by a different
faction now as opposed to when the UN started, and Russia
got to take over the seat formerly held by the Soviet
Union. Other than that, there have been no changes as to who holds
that awesome veto power. I am not sure why the original powers have been able
to hold onto their positions for so long, but I can assure you it has nothing
to do with democracy. The five permanent members of the Security Council
certainly were not elected by a majority of the people in the world, and if
there was an election held today it is unlikely any of them would maintain
their positions.

Even the General Assembly is in no way a democracy of the world. If
anything it is a Democracy of Nations. But nations are simply inanimate
political structures with artificial geographical borders. Some Nations are
more democratic than others, but even in the most democratic nations their
citizens have very little knowledge of, or say in, what goes on at the
U.N.How can anyone call the United
Nations a world democracy when the UN’s one state, one vote power structure theoretically allows states
comprising just eight percent of the world population to pass a resolution by a
two-thirds vote?

Political leaders are intent on protecting their artificial geographical borders,
and making decisions based on what is best for their own inanimate political
structure and economy. People are tired of that kind of thinking. If we want
the human race to survive we must all come together. By having one country we
can cut out a lot of the bureaucracy and cross border rivalries that hurt our
efficiency. By uniting and working together we can save lives.

1 comment:

Unfortunately, if a vote were taken to save the millions of lives, it would only pass if it involved no cost in time or money to the voter. We are selfish beings, and always have been. That may change in the future but it will take generations. Sites like this are small steps in the right direction though.